Rutgers professor Sarah Ricks gave an online interview last Friday to the website Politifact.com offering balance to political pundit Anne Coulter's criticism of Sotomayor's role in the Second Circuit's handling of the Ricci case, recently overturned by SCOTUS.

Ms.Coulter claims that the Second Circuit's unsigned opinion in Ricci was a "sneaky" way for Sotomayor to toss the political hot potato out of court. "Not so" said Professor Ricks.

'Generally, an 'unsigned' opinion means the opinion was issued per curiam, meaning no one judge took credit for authoring the opinion, but it represents the opinion of the court,' Sarah Ricks, a law professor at Rutgers University who has analyzed types of judicial opinions, wrote us in an e-mail interview.

Ricks added that 'it is not unusual for a federal appellate court to issue a per curiam opinion; even the Supreme Court very occasionally issues a per curiam opinion. ... A per curiam opinion does not preclude separate opinions by members of the court but it does represent the reasoning for the judgment of the court.'

Read the whole story, including former UNLV law prof Carl Tobias' commentary, right here.